feelings with which the young scholar, then twenty-four
years of age, started for Italy, as yet without any position, without
having published a single work, without knowing, as we may suppose, where
to rest his head. And yet he was full, not only of hope, but of gratitude,
and he little dreamt that before seven years had passed he would be in
Niebuhr's place; and before twenty-five years had passed in the place of
William von Humboldt, the Prussian Ambassador at the Court of St. James.

The immediate future, in fact, had some severe disappointments in store
for him. When he arrived at Florence to meet Mr. Astor, the young American
had received peremptory orders to return to New York; and as Bunsen
declined to follow him, he found himself really stranded at Florence, and
all his plans thoroughly upset. Yet, though at that very time full of care
and anxiety about his nearest relations, who looked to him for support
when he could hardly support himself, his God-trusting spirit did not
break down. He remained at Florence, continuing his Persian studies, and
making a living by private tuition. A Mr. Cathcart seems to have been his
favorite pupil, and through him new prospects of eventually proceeding to
India seemed to open. But, at the same time, Bunsen began to feel that the
circumstances of his life became critical. "I feel," he says, "that I am
on the point of securing or losing the fruit of my labors for life." Rome
and Niebuhr seemed the only haven in sight, and thither Bunsen now began
to steer his frail bark. He arrived in Rome on the 14th of November, 1816.
Niebuhr, who was Prussian Minister, received him with great kindness, and
entered heartily into the literary plans of his young friend. Brandis,
Niebuhr's secretary, renewed in common with his old friend his study of
Greek philosophy. A native teacher of Arabic was engaged to help Bunsen in
his Oriental studies. The necessary supplies seem to have come partly from
Mr. Astor, partly from private lessons for which Bunsen had to make time
in the midst of his varied occupations. Plato, Firdusi, the Koran, Dante,
Isaiah, the Edda, are mentioned by himself as his daily study.

From an English point of view that young man at Rome, without a status,
without a settled prospect in life, would have seemed an amiable dreamer,
destined to wake suddenly, and not very pleasantly, to the stern realities
of life. If anything seemed unlikely, it was that an English gentleman, a
m